1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a beverage bottle closing apparatus configured to close beverage bottles in a beverage bottling plant.
2. Background Information
A beverage bottling plant for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling bottles with liquid beverage filling material. The filling devices may have an apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined volume of liquid beverage filling material into the interior of bottles to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage filling material. The apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material further comprises an apparatus that is designed to terminate the filling of the beverage bottles upon the liquid beverage filling material reaching the predetermined level in bottles. There may also be provided a conveyer arrangement that is designed to move bottles, for example, from an inspecting machine to the filling machine. Upon filling, a closing station closes the filled bottles. There may further be provided a conveyer arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the filling machine to the closing station. Bottles may be labeled in a labeling station, the labeling station having a conveyer arrangement to receive bottles and to output bottles. The closing station and the labeling station may be connected by a corresponding conveyer arrangement.
The prior art describes devices for closing or capping containers with screw tops by screwing the caps onto a container-side thread that is realized on the mouth of the container. Closers and cappers of the prior art have, on the periphery of a rotor that is driven in rotation around a vertical machine axis, a plurality of closing positions, each of which is formed by, among other things, a screw head that can be driven in rotation by a drive and a container carrier. For the delivery of the container to be capped, the container carrier can be moved in a first lifting direction upward, i.e. closer to the screw head or to the screw cap that is already present in the screw head, and for the removal of the capped container can be moved downward in a second, operating direction opposite to the first direction.
On a device of this type of the prior art, the container carriers are each moved by a control cam and spring means, so that the movement of each container carrier in the first lifting direction is effected exclusively by means of the spring means, and in the second lowering direction by means of the control cam, and namely counter to the action of the spring means. The spring means then simultaneously provide the “thread adjustment”, i.e. the tracking of the respective container in the first lifting direction while the screw cap is screwed tight.
One disadvantage, however, is that in the event of any binding or sluggishness of the lifting element, the container carrier in question and thus also the container that is present on this container carrier are not lifted far enough toward the screw head, and thus the respective screw cap is not screwed onto the container to be capped, or is screwed on only insufficiently.